ALTO WG W. Roome
Internet-Draft Nokia Bell Labs
Intended status: Standards Track Y. Yang
Expires: December 15, 2018 Tongji/Yale University
S. Chen
Tongji University
June 13, 2018
ALTO Incremental Updates Using Server-Sent Events (SSE)
draft-ietf-alto-incr-update-sse-11
Abstract
The Application-Layer Traffic Optimization (ALTO) [RFC7285] protocol
provides network related information, called network information
resources, to client applications so that clients can make informed
decisions in utilizing network resources. For example, an ALTO
server can provide network and cost maps so that an ALTO client can
use the maps to determine the costs between endpoints when choosing
communicating endpoints.
However, the ALTO protocol does not define a mechanism to allow an
ALTO client to obtain updates to the information resources, other
than by periodically re-fetching them. Because some information
resources (e.g., the aforementioned maps) may be large (potentially
tens of megabytes), and because only parts of the information
resources may change frequently (e.g., only some entries in a cost
map), complete re-fetching can be extremely inefficient.
This document presents a mechanism to allow an ALTO server to push
updates to ALTO clients, to achieve two benefits: (1) Updates can be
immediate, in that the server can send updates as soon as they are
available; and (2) updates can be incremental, in that if only a
small section of an information resource changes, the server can send
just the changes.
Requirements Language
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [RFC2119].
Status of This Memo
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
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This Internet-Draft will expire on December 15, 2018.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2018 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Major Changes Since Version -01 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3. Terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
4. Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4.1. Server-Sent Events (SSEs) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4.2. JSON Merge Patch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4.2.1. JSON Merge Patch Encoding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4.2.2. Merge Patch ALTO Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4.3. JSON Patch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
4.3.1. JSON Patch Encoding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
4.3.2. JSON Patch ALTO Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
5. Overview of Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
6. Update Messages: Data Update and Control Update Messages . . 14
6.1. ALTO Update Message Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
6.2. ALTO Data Update Message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
6.3. ALTO Control Update Message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
7. Update Stream Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
7.1. Media Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
7.2. HTTP Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
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7.3. Accept Input Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
7.4. Capabilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
7.5. Uses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
7.6. Response . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
7.6.1. Keep-Alive Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
7.6.2. Event Sequence Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
7.6.3. Cross-Stream Consistency Requirements . . . . . . . . 21
8. Update Stream Control Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
8.1. URI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
8.2. Media Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
8.3. HTTP Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
8.4. Accept Input Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
8.5. Capabilities & Uses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
8.6. Response . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
9. Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
9.1. Example: IRD Announcing Update Stream Services . . . . . 24
9.2. Example: Simple Network and Cost Map Updates . . . . . . 26
9.3. Example: Advanced Network and Cost Map Updates . . . . . 29
9.4. Example: Endpoint Property Updates . . . . . . . . . . . 32
10. Client Actions When Receiving Update Messages . . . . . . . . 36
11. Design Decisions and Discussions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
11.1. HTTP/2 Server-Push . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
11.2. Not Allowing Stream Restart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
11.3. Data Update Choices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
11.3.1. Full Replacement or Incremental Change . . . . . . . 39
11.3.2. JSON Merge Patch or JSON Patch . . . . . . . . . . . 39
11.4. Requirements on Future ALTO Services to Use this Design 40
12. Miscellaneous Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
12.1. Considerations for Updates to Filtered Cost Maps . . . . 40
12.2. Considerations for Incremental Updates to Ordinal Mode
Costs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
12.3. Considerations Related to SSE Line Lengths . . . . . . . 41
13. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
13.1. Denial-of-Service Attacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
13.2. Spoofed Control Requests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
13.3. Privacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
14. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
15. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Appendix A. Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
1. Introduction
The Application-Layer Traffic Optimization (ALTO) [RFC7285] protocol
provides network related information called network information
resources to client applications so that clients may make informed
decisions in utilizing network resources. For example, an ALTO
server provides network and cost maps, where a network map partitions
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the set of endpoints into a manageable number of sets each defined by
a Provider-Defined Identifier (PID), and a cost map provides directed
costs between PIDs. Given network and cost maps, an ALTO client can
obtain costs between endpoints by using the network map to get the
PID for each endpoint, and then using the cost map to get the costs
between those PIDs. Such costs can be used by the client to choose
communicating endpoints with low network costs.
However, the ALTO protocol does not define a mechanism to allow a
client to obtain updates to network information resources, other than
by periodically re-fetching them. In settings where an information
resource may be large but only parts of it may change frequently
(e.g., some entries of a cost map), complete re-fetching can be
inefficient.
This document presents a mechanism to allow an ALTO server to push
incremental updates to ALTO clients. Integrating server-push and
incremental updates provides two benefits: (1) Updates can be
immediate, in that the server can send updates as soon as they are
available; and (2) updates can be small, in that if only a small
section of an information resource changes, the server can send just
the changes.
While primarily intended to provide updates to GET-mode network and
cost maps, the mechanism defined in this document can also provide
updates to POST-mode ALTO services such as the endpoint property and
endpoint cost services. We intend that the mechanism can also
support new ALTO services to be defined by future extensions. We
discuss the requirements in Section 11.4.
The rest of this document is organized as follows. Section 4 gives
background on the basic techniques used in this design: Server-Sent
Events to allow server push; JSON merge patch and JSON patch to allow
incremental update. With the background, Section 5 gives a non-
normative overview of the design. Section 6 defines individual
messages in an update stream, and Section 7 defines the overall
update stream service. Section 8 defines the update stream control
service. Section 9 gives several examples. Section 10 describes how
a client should handle incoming updates. Section 11 and Section 12
discuss the design decisions behind this update mechanism and other
considerations. The remaining sections review the security and IANA
considerations.
2. Major Changes Since Version -01
To RFC editor: This will be removed in the final version.
o Added JSON patch as an alternative incremental delta encoding.
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o Defined a new "stream control" resource (Section 8) to allow
clients to add or remove resources from a previously created
update stream. The ALTO server creates a new stream control
resource for each update stream instance, assigns a unique URI to
it, and sends the URI to the client as the first event in the
stream.
o The client now assigns a unique client-id to each resource in an
update stream. The server puts the client-id in each update event
for that resource (before, the server used the server's resource-
id). This allows a client to use one update stream to get updates
to two different requests with the same server resource-id;
before, that required two separate update streams.
3. Terms
This document uses the following terms: Update Stream, Update
Message, Data Update Message, Full Replacement, Incremental Change
and Control Update Message.
Update Stream: An update stream is a sequence of update messages from
an ALTO server to an ALTO client.
Update Message: An update message is either a data update message or
a control update message.
Data Update Message: A data update message is for a single ALTO
resource and sent from the server to the client when the resource
changes. A data update message can be either a full-replacement or
an incremental-change message. Full replacement is a shorthand for a
full replacement message, and incremental change is a shorthand for
an incremental-change message.
Full Replacement: A full replacement for a resource sends the content
of the resource in its original ALTO encoding.
Incremental Change: An incremental change specifies only the
difference between the new content and the previous version. An
incremental change can be specified using either JSON merge patch or
JSON patch in this document.
Control Update Message: A control update message is for the server to
notify the client on either the URI using which the client can send
stream control requests for update stream requests or a list of
client-ids of resources that the server will no longer send updates.
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4. Background
The design requires two basic techniques: server push and encoding of
incremental changes. Using existing techniques whenever possible,
this design uses SSE for server push; JSON merge patch and JSON patch
to encode incremental changes. Below we give a non-normative summary
of these two techniques.
4.1. Server-Sent Events (SSEs)
The following is a non-normative summary of Server-Sent Events
(SSEs); see [SSE] for its normative definition.
Server-Sent Events enable a server to send new data to a client by
"server-push". The client establishes an HTTP ([RFC7230], [RFC7231])
connection to the server, and keeps the connection open. The server
continually sends messages. Each message has one or more lines,
where a line is terminated by a carriage-return immediately followed
by a new-line, a carriage-return not immediately followed by a new-
line, or a new-line not immediately preceded by a carriage-return. A
message is terminated by a blank line (two line terminators in a
row).
Each line in a message is of the form "field-name: string value".
Lines with a blank field-name (that is, lines which start with a
colon) are ignored, as are lines which do not have a colon. The
protocol defines three field names: event, id, and data. If a
message has more than one "data" line, the value of the data field is
the concatenation of the values on those lines. There can be only
one "event" or "id" line per message. The "data" field is required;
the others are optional.
Figure 1 is a sample SSE stream, starting with the client request.
The server sends three events and then closes the stream.
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(Client request)
GET /stream HTTP/1.1
Host: example.com
Accept: text/event-stream
(Server response)
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Connection: keep-alive
Content-Type: text/event-stream
event: start
id: 1
data: hello there
event: middle
id: 2
data: let's chat some more ...
data: and more and more and ...
event: end
id: 3
data: good bye
Figure 1: A Sample SSE stream.
4.2. JSON Merge Patch
4.2.1. JSON Merge Patch Encoding
To avoid always sending complete data, a server needs mechanisms to
encode incremental changes. This design uses JSON merge patch as one
mechanism. Below is a non-normative summary of JSON merge patch; see
[RFC7396] for the normative definition.
JSON merge patch is intended to allow applications to update server
resources via the HTTP PATCH method [RFC5789]. This document adopts
the JSON merge patch message format to encode incremental changes,
but uses a different transport mechanism.
Informally, a merge patch object is a JSON data structure that
defines how to transform one JSON value into another. Specifically,
JSON merge patch treats the two JSON values as trees of nested JSON
objects (dictionaries of name-value pairs), where the leaves are
values other than JSON objects (e.g., JSON arrays, strings, numbers),
and the path for each leaf is the sequence of keys leading to that
leaf. When the second tree has a different value for a leaf at a
path, or adds a new leaf, the merge patch tree has a leaf, at that
path, with the new value. When a leaf in the first tree does not
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exist in the second tree, the merge patch tree has a leaf with a JSON
"null" value. The merge patch tree does not have an entry for any
leaf that has the same value in both versions.
As a result, if all leaf values are simple scalars, JSON merge patch
is a quite efficient representation of incremental changes. It is
less efficient when leaf values are arrays, because JSON merge patch
replaces arrays in their entirety, even if only one entry changes.
Formally, the process of applying a merge patch is defined by the
following recursive algorithm, as specified in [RFC7396]:
define MergePatch(Target, Patch) {
if Patch is an Object {
if Target is not an Object {
Target = {} # Ignore the contents and
# set it to an empty Object
}
for each Name/Value pair in Patch {
if Value is null {
if Name exists in Target {
remove the Name/Value pair from Target
}
} else {
Target[Name] = MergePatch(Target[Name], Value)
}
}
return Target
} else {
return Patch
}
}
Note that null as the value of a name/value pair will delete the
element with "name" in the original JSON value.
4.2.2. Merge Patch ALTO Messages
Both as examples of JSON merge patch and demonstration of feasibility
to apply JSON merge patch to ALTO, we look at the application of JSON
merge patch to two key ALTO messages.
4.2.2.1. Merge Patch Network Map Messages
Section 11.2.1.6 of [RFC7285] defines the format of a network map
message. Here is a simple example ALTO message sending an initial
network map:
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{
"meta" : {
"vtag": {
"resource-id" : "my-network-map",
"tag" : "da65eca2eb7a10ce8b059740b0b2e3f8eb1d4785"
}
},
"network-map" : {
"PID1" : {
"ipv4" : [ "192.0.2.0/24", "198.51.100.0/25" ]
},
"PID2" : {
"ipv4" : [ "198.51.100.128/25" ]
},
"PID3" : {
"ipv4" : [ "0.0.0.0/0" ],
"ipv6" : [ "::/0" ]
}
}
}
Consider the following merge patch update message, which adds an ipv4
prefix "193.51.100.0/25" and an ipv6 prefix "2001:db8:8000::/33" to
"PID1", deletes "PID2", and assigns a new "tag" to the network map:
{
"meta" : {
"vtag" : {
"tag" : "a10ce8b059740b0b2e3f8eb1d4785acd42231bfe"
}
},
"network-map": {
"PID1" : {
"ipv4" : [ "192.0.2.0/24", "198.51.100.0/25",
"193.51.100.0/25" ],
"ipv6" : [ "2001:db8:8000::/33" ]
},
"PID2" : null
}
}
Here is the updated network map:
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{
"meta" : {
"vtag": {
"resource-id" : "my-network-map",
"tag" : "a10ce8b059740b0b2e3f8eb1d4785acd42231bfe"
}
},
"network-map" : {
"PID1" : {
"ipv4" : [ "192.0.2.0/24", "198.51.100.0/25",
"193.51.100.0/25" ],
"ipv6" : [ "2001:db8:8000::/33" ]
},
"PID3" : {
"ipv4" : [ "0.0.0.0/0" ],
"ipv6" : [ "::/0" ]
}
}
}
4.2.2.2. Merge Patch Cost Map Messages
Section 11.2.3.6 of [RFC7285] defines the format of a cost map
message. Here is a simple example ALTO message for an initial cost
map:
{
"meta" : {
"dependent-vtags" : [
{"resource-id": "my-network-map",
"tag": "a10ce8b059740b0b2e3f8eb1d4785acd42231bfe"
}
],
"cost-type" : {
"cost-mode" : "numerical",
"cost-metric": "routingcost"
},
"vtag": {
"resource-id" : "my-cost-map",
"tag" : "3ee2cb7e8d63d9fab71b9b34cbf764436315542e"
}
},
"cost-map" : {
"PID1": { "PID1": 1, "PID2": 5, "PID3": 10 },
"PID2": { "PID1": 5, "PID2": 1, "PID3": 15 },
"PID3": { "PID1": 20, "PID2": 15 }
}
}
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The following merge patch message updates the example cost map so
that PID1->PID2 is 9 instead of 5, PID3->PID1 is no longer available,
and PID3->PID3 is now defined as 1:
{
"meta" : {
"vtag": {
"tag": "c0ce023b8678a7b9ec00324673b98e54656d1f6d"
}
}
"cost-map" : {
"PID1" : { "PID2" : 9 },
"PID3" : { "PID1" : null, "PID3" : 1 }
}
}
Here is the updated cost map:
{
"meta" : {
"dependent-vtags" : [
{"resource-id": "my-network-map",
"tag": "a10ce8b059740b0b2e3f8eb1d4785acd42231bfe"
}
],
"cost-type" : {
"cost-mode" : "numerical",
"cost-metric": "routingcost"
}
},
"cost-map" : {
"PID1": { "PID1": 1, "PID2": 9, "PID3": 10 },
"PID2": { "PID1": 5, "PID2": 1, "PID3": 15 },
"PID3": { "PID2": 15, "PID3": 1 }
}
}
4.3. JSON Patch
4.3.1. JSON Patch Encoding
One issue of JSON merge patch is that it does not handle array
changes well. In particular, JSON merge patch considers an array as
a single object and hence can only replace an array in its entirety.
When the change is to make a smaller change to an array such as the
deletion of an element from a large array, whole-array replacement is
inefficient. Consider the example in Section 4.2.2.1. To add a new
entry to the ipv4 array for PID1, a whole new array is sent. Another
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issue is that JSON merge patch cannot change values to be null; see
the note below the MergePatch algorithm.
JSON patch [RFC6902] can address the preceding issues. It defines a
set of operators to modify a JSON object. Below is a non-normative
description of JSON patch; see [RFC6902] for the normative
definition.
4.3.2. JSON Patch ALTO Messages
Both as examples of JSON patch and demonstration of difference
between JSON patch and JSON merge patch, we look at the application
of JSON patch to the same updates shown in Section 4.2.2.
4.3.2.1. JSON Patch Network Map Messages
First consider the same update as in Section 4.2.2.1 for the network
map. Below is the encoding using JSON patch:
[
{
"op": "replace",
"path": "/meta/vtag/tag",
"value": "a10ce8b059740b0b2e3f8eb1d4785acd42231bfe"
},
{
"op": "add",
"path": "/network-map/PID1/ipv4/2",
"value": "193.51.100.0/25"
}
{
"op": "add",
"path": "/network-map/PID1/ipv6",
"value": ["2001:db8:8000::/33"]
},
{
"op": "remove",
"path": "/network-map/PID2"
}
]
4.3.2.2. JSON patch Cost Map Messages
Compared with JSON merge patch, JSON patch does not encode cost map
updates efficiently. Consider the cost map update shown in
Section 4.2.2.2. JSON patch has:
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[
{
"op": "replace",
"path": "/meta/vtag/tag",
"value": "c0ce023b8678a7b9ec00324673b98e54656d1f6d"
},
{
"op": "replace",
"path": "/cost-map/PID1/PID2",
"value": 9
},
{
"op": "remove",
"path": "/cost-map/PID3/PID1"
},
{
"op": "replace",
"path": "/cost-map/PID3/PID3",
"value": 1
}
]
5. Overview of Approach
With the preceding background, we now give a non-normative overview
of the update mechanism to be defined in the later sections of this
document.
The building block of the update mechanism defined in this document
is the update stream service (defined in Section 7), and each update
stream service is a POST-mode service. The update stream service
uses update streams to continuously send a sequence of update
messages (defined in Section 6) to an ALTO client. An update stream
can provide updates to both GET-mode resources, such as ALTO network
and cost maps, and POST-mode resources, such as ALTO endpoint
property services.
Although an update stream may update one or more ALTO resources, each
update message updates only one resource, and is sent as a Server-
Sent Event (SSE), as defined by [SSE]. An update message is encoded
either as a full replacement or an incremental change. A full
replacement uses the JSON message format defined by the ALTO
protocol. There can be multiple encodings for incremental changes.
The current design supports incremental changes using JSON merge
patch ([RFC7396]) or JSON patch ([RFC6902]) to describe the changes
of the resource. Future documents may define additional mechanisms
for incremental changes. The ALTO server decides when to send update
messages, and whether to send full replacements or incremental
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changes. These decisions can vary from resource to resource and from
update to update.
An ALTO server may offer any number of update stream resources, for
any subset of the server's resources. An ALTO server's Information
Resource Directory (IRD) defines the update stream resources, and
declares the set of resources for which each update stream provides
updates. The server selects the resource set for each stream. It is
recommended that if a resource depends on one or more other
resource(s) (indicated with the "uses" attribute defined in
[RFC7285]), these other resource(s) should also be part of that
update stream. Thus the update stream for a cost map should also
provide updates for the network map on which that cost map depends.
When an ALTO client requests an update stream resource, the client
establishes a new persistent connection to the server. The server
responds by sending an event with the URI of an update stream control
resource for this update stream. The control URI allows a client to
modify the newly-created update stream. For example, the client can
ask the server to send data update messages for additional resources,
to stop sending data update messages for previously requested
resources, or to gracefully stop and close the update stream
altogether.
A client may request any number of update streams simultaneously.
Because each update stream consumes resources on the server, a server
may require client authorization/authentication, limit the number of
open update streams, close inactive streams, or redirect a client to
another server.
6. Update Messages: Data Update and Control Update Messages
We now define the details of ALTO incremental update. Specifically,
an update stream consists of a stream of data update messages
(Section 6.2) and control update messages (Section 6.3).
6.1. ALTO Update Message Format
Data update and control update messages have the same basic
structure. The data field is a JSON object, and the event field
contains the media type of the data field, and an optional client id.
Data update messages use the client id to identify the ALTO resource
to which the update message applies. Client ids MUST follow the
rules for ALTO ResourceIds (see Section 10.2 of [RFC7285]). Client
ids MUST be unique within an update stream, but need not be globally
unique. For example, if a client requests updates for both a cost
map and its network map, the client might assign id "1" to the
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network map and "2" to the cost map. Alternatively, the client could
use the ALTO resource ids for those two maps.
JSON specifications use the type ClientId for a client-id.
The two sub-fields of the event field are encoded as comma-separated
strings:
media-type [ ',' client-id ]
Note that media type names may not contain a comma (character code
0x2c).
Note that an update stream does not use the SSE "id" field.
6.2. ALTO Data Update Message
A data update message is sent when a monitored resource changes. The
data is either a complete specification of the resource, or else a
patch (either JSON merge patch or JSON patch) describing the changes
from the last version. We will refer to these as full replacement
and incremental change, respectively. The encoding of full
replacement is defined by [RFC7285]; examples are network and cost
map messages. They have the media types defined in that document.
The encoding of JSON merge patch is defined by [RFC7396], with media
type "application/merge-patch+json"; the encoding of JSON patch is
defined by [RFC6902], with media type "application/json-patch+json".
Figure 2 shows some examples of ALTO data update messages:
event: application/alto-networkmap+json,1
data: { ... full network map message ... }
event: application/alto-costmap+json,2
data: { ... full cost map message ... }
event: application/merge-patch+json,2
data: { ... merge patch update for the cost map ... }
Figure 2: Examples of ALTO data update messages.
6.3. ALTO Control Update Message
Control update messages have the media type "application/alto-
updatestreamcontrol+json", and the data is of type
UpdateStreamControlEvent:
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object {
[String control-uri;]
[String remove<1..*>;]
[Boolean state;]
} UpdateStreamControlEvent;
The "control-uri" field is the URI of the stream control resource for
this update stream (see Section 8). The ALTO server MUST send a
control update message with that URI as the first event in an update
stream.
The "remove" field is a list of client-ids of resources for which the
server will no longer send updates. The server sends this event
after processing a stream control request to remove those resources
(Section 7.6.2).
The "state" field indicates whether the resources in the "remove"
field are successfully removed by the server or not. The ALTO server
will set "state" to true if the resources in the "remove" field are
successfully removed; otherwise, "state" will be false;
7. Update Stream Service
An update stream service returns a stream of update messages, as
defined in Section 6. An ALTO server's IRD (Information Resource
Directory) MAY define one or more update stream resources, which
clients use to request new update stream instances.
When a server creates a new update stream, it also creates a new
update stream control service for that update stream. A client uses
the update stream control service to remove resources from the update
stream instance, or to request updates for additional resources. A
client cannot obtain the update stream control service through the
IRD. Instead, the first event that the server sends to the client
has the URI for the associated update stream control service (see
Section 6.3.
Section 8 describes the update stream control service.
7.1. Media Type
The media type of an ALTO update stream resource is "text/event-
stream", as defined by [SSE].
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7.2. HTTP Method
An ALTO update stream resource is requested using the HTTP POST
method.
7.3. Accept Input Parameters
An ALTO client specifies the parameters for the new update stream by
sending an HTTP POST body with the media type "application/alto-
updatestreamparams+json". That body contains a JSON Object of type
UpdateStreamReq, where:
object {
[AddUpdatesReq add;]
[ClientId remove<0..*>;]
} UpdateStreamReq;
object-map {
ClientId -> AddUpdateReq;
} AddUpdatesReq;
object {
String resource-id;
[String tag;]
[Boolean incremental-changes;]
[Object input;]
} AddUpdateReq;
The "add" field specifies the resources for which the client wants
updates, and has one entry for each resource. The client creates a
unique client-id (Section 6.1) for each such resource, and uses those
client-ids as the keys in the "add" field.
An update stream request MUST have an "add" field specifying one or
more resources. If it does not, the server MUST return an
E_INVALID_FIELD_VALUE error response (see Section 8.5.2 of
[RFC7285]), and MUST close the stream without sending any events.
The "resource-id" field is the resource-id of an ALTO resource, and
MUST be in the update stream's "uses" list (see Section 7.5). If any
resource-id is invalid, or is not associated with this update stream,
the server MUST return an E_INVALID_FIELD_VALUE error response (see
Section 8.5.2 of [RFC7285]), and MUST close the stream without
sending any events.
If the resource-id is a GET-mode resource with a version tag (or
"vtag"), as defined in Sections 6.3 and 10.3 of [RFC7285], and if the
client has previously retrieved a version of that resource from the
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server, the client MAY set the "tag" field to the tag part of the
client's version of that resource. If that version is not current,
the server MUST send a full replacement before sending any patch
updates, as described in Section 7.6.2. If that version is still
current, the ALTO server MAY omit the initial full replacement.
If the "incremental-changes" field for a resource-id is "true", the
server MAY send incremental changes for this resource-id (assuming
the server supports incremental changes for that resource; see
Section 7.4). If the "incremental-changes" field is "false", the
ALTO server MUST NOT send incremental changes for that resource.
The default for "incremental-changes" is "true", so to suppress
incremental changes, the client MUST explicitly set "incremental-
changes" to "false". Note that the client cannot suppress full
replacements.
When the client sets "incremental-changes" to "false", whenever a
change occurs, the server MUST send a full replacement instead of an
incremental change. The server MAY wait until more changes are
available, and send a single full replacement with those changes.
Thus an ALTO client which declines to accept incremental changes may
not get updates as quickly as a client which does.
If the resource is a POST-mode service which requires input, the
client MUST set the "input" field to a JSON Object with the
parameters that resource expects. If the "input" field is missing or
invalid, the ALTO server MUST return the same error response that
that resource would return for missing or invalid input (see
[RFC7285]). In this case, the server MUST close the update stream
without sending any events. If the inputs for several POST-mode
resources are missing or invalid, the server MUST pick one error
response and return it.
The "remove" field is used in update stream control requests (see
Section 8), and is not allowed in the update stream request. If the
"remove" field exists, the server MUST return an
E_INVALID_FIELD_VALUE error response (see Section 8.5.2 of
[RFC7285]), and MUST close the stream without sending any events.
7.4. Capabilities
The capabilities are defined by an object of type
UpdateStreamCapabilities:
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object {
IncrementalUpdateMediaTypes incremental-change-media-types;
} UpdateStreamCapabilities;
object-map {
ResourceID -> String;
} IncrementalUpdateMediaTypes;
If this update stream can provide data update messages with
incremental changes for a resource, the "incremental-change-media-
types" field has an entry for that resource-id, and the value is the
media-type of the incremental change. Normally this will be
"application/merge-patch+json", "application/json-patch+json", or
"application/merge-patch+json,application/json-patch+json", because,
as described in Section 6, they are the only incremental change types
defined by this document. However future extensions may define other
types of incremental changes.
When choosing the media-type to encode incremental changes for a
resource, the server SHOULD consider the limitations of the encoding.
For example, when a JSON merge patch specifies that the value of a
field is null, its semantics is that the field is removed from the
target, and hence the field is no longer defined (i.e., undefined);
see the MergePatch algorithm in Section 4.2.1 on how null value is
processed. This, however, may not be the intended result for the
resource, when null and undefined have different semantics for the
resource. In such a case, the server SHOULD choose JSON patch over
merge patch.
7.5. Uses
The "uses" attribute MUST be an array with the resource-ids of every
resource for which this stream can provide updates. Each resource
specified in the "uses" MUST support full replacement: server can
always send full replacement, and the client MUST accept full
replacement.
This set may be any subset of the ALTO server's resources, and may
include resources defined in linked IRDs. However, it is RECOMMENDED
that the ALTO server select a set that is closed under the resource
dependency relationship. That is, if an update stream's "uses" set
includes resource R1, and resource R1 depends on ("uses") resource
R0, then the update stream's "uses" set SHOULD include R0 as well as
R1. For example, an update stream for a cost map SHOULD also provide
updates for the network map upon which that cost map depends.
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7.6. Response
The response is a stream of update messages. Section 6 defines the
update messages, and [SSE] defines how they are encoded into a
stream.
An ALTO server SHOULD send updates only when the underlying values
change. However, it may be difficult for a server to guarantee that
in all circumstances. Therefore a client MUST NOT assume that an
update message represents an actual change.
There are additional requirements on the server's response, as
described below.
7.6.1. Keep-Alive Messages
In an SSE stream, any line which starts with a colon (U+003A)
character is a comment, and an ALTO client MUST ignore that line
([SSE]). As recommended in [SSE], an ALTO server SHOULD send a
comment line (or an event) every 15 seconds to prevent clients and
proxy servers from dropping the HTTP connection.
7.6.2. Event Sequence Requirements
o The first event MUST be a control update message with the URI of
the stream control service (Section 8) for this update stream
(Section 6.3).
o As soon as possible after the client initiates the connection, the
ALTO server MUST send a full replacement for each resource-id
requested by the client. The only exception is for a GET-mode
resource with a version tag. In this case the server MAY omit the
initial full replacement for that resource, if the "tag" field the
client provided for that resource-id matches the tag of the
server's current version.
o If this stream provides updates for resource-ids R0 and R1, and if
R1 depends on R0, then the ALTO server MUST send the update for R0
before sending the related update for R1. For example, suppose a
stream provides updates to a network map and its dependent cost
maps. When the network map changes, the ALTO server MUST send the
network map update before sending the cost map updates.
o If this stream provides updates for resource-ids R0 and R1, and if
R1 depends on R0, then the ALTO server SHOULD send an update for
R1 as soon as possible after sending the update for R0. For
example, when a network map changes, the ALTO server SHOULD send
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data update messages for the dependent cost maps as soon as
possible after the data update messages for the network map.
o When the client uses the stream control service to stop updates
for one or more resources (Section 8), the ALTO server MUST send a
control update message (Section 6.3) whose "remove" field has the
client-ids of those resources. If the client uses the stream
control service to terminate all active resources and close the
stream, the server MUST send a control update message whose
"remove" field has the client-ids of all active resources.
7.6.3. Cross-Stream Consistency Requirements
If several clients create multiple update streams for updates to the
same resource, the server MUST send the same updates to all of them.
However, the server MAY pack data items into different patch events,
as long as the net result of applying those updates is the same.
For example, suppose two different clients create update streams for
the same cost map, and suppose the ALTO server processes three
separate cost point updates with a brief pause between each update.
The server MUST send all three new cost points to both clients. But
the server MAY send a single patch event (with all three cost points)
to one client, while sending three separate patch events (with one
cost point per event) to the other client.
A server MAY offer several different update stream resources that
provide updates to the same underlying resource (that is, a resource-
id may appear in the "uses" field of more than one update stream
resource). In this case, those update stream resources MUST return
the same update data.
8. Update Stream Control Service
An update stream control service allows a client to remove resources
from the set of resources that are monitored by an update stream, or
add additional resources to that set. The service also allows a
client to gracefully shutdown an update stream.
The stream control service is not obtained from the ALTO server's
IRD. Instead, when a client requests a new update stream, the server
creates a new control service for that stream, and sends its URI to
the client as the first event in the update stream (Section 7.6.2).
As described below, each control request adds resources to the set of
monitored resources, or removes previously added resources, or does
both. Each control request is a separate HTTP request; the client
MAY NOT stream multiple control requests in one HTTP request.
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However, if the client and server support HTTP Keep-Alive
([RFC7230]), the client MAY send multiple HTTP requests on the same
TCP/IP connection.
8.1. URI
The URI for a stream control service, by itself, MUST uniquely
specify the update stream instance which it controls. The server
MUST NOT use other properties of an HTTP request, such as cookies or
the client's IP address, to determine the update stream.
Furthermore, a server MUST NOT re-use a control service URI once the
associated update stream has been closed.
The client MUST evaluate a non-absolute control URI (for example, a
URI without a host, or with a relative path) in the context of the
URI used to create the update stream. The controller's host MAY be
different from the update stream's host.
It is expected that the server will assign a unique stream id to each
update stream instance, and will embed that id in the associated
stream control URI. However, the exact mechanism is left to the
server. Clients MUST NOT attempt to deduce a stream id from the
control URI.
To prevent an attacker from forging a stream control URI and sending
bogus requests to disrupt other update streams, stream control URIs
SHOULD contain sufficient random redundancy to make it difficult to
guess valid URIs.
8.2. Media Type
An ALTO stream control response does not have a specific media type.
If a request is successful, the server returns an HTTP "204 No
Content" response. If a request is unsuccessful, the server returns
an ALTO error response (Section 8.5.2 of [RFC7285])
8.3. HTTP Method
An ALTO update stream control resource is requested using the HTTP
POST method.
8.4. Accept Input Parameters
A stream control service accepts the same input media type and input
parameters as the update stream service (Section 7.3). The only
difference is that a stream control service also accepts the "remove"
field.
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If specified, the "remove" field is an array of client-ids the client
previously added to this update stream. An empty "remove" array is
equivalent to a list of all currently active resources; the server
responds by removing all resources and closing the stream.
A client MAY use the "add" field to add additional resources.
However, the client MUST assign a unique client-id to each resource.
Client-ids MUST be unique over the lifetime of this update stream: a
client MUST NOT re-use a previously removed client-id.
If a request has any error, the server MUST NOT add or remove any
resources from the associated update stream. In particular,
o Each "add" request must satisfy the requirements in Section 7.3.
If not, the server MUST return the error response defined in
Section 7.3.
o As described in Section 7.6.2, for each "add" request, the ALTO
server MUST send a full replacement for that resource before
sending any incremental changes. The only exception is for a GET-
mode resource with a version tag. In this case the server MAY
omit the full replacement for that resource if the "tag" field the
client provided matches the server's current version.
o The server MUST return an E_INVALID_FIELD_VALUE error if a client-
id in the "remove" field was not added in a prior request. Thus
it is illegal to "add" and "remove" the same client-id in the same
request. However, it is legal to remove a client-id twice.
o The server MUST return an E_INVALID_FIELD_VALUE error if a client-
id in the "add" field has been used before in this stream.
o The server MUST return an E_INVALID_FIELD_VALUE error if the
request has a non-empty "add" field and a "remove" field with an
empty list of client-ids (to replace all active resources with a
new set, the client MUST explicitly enumerate the client-ids to be
removed).
o If the associated update stream has been closed, the server MUST
return either an ALTO E_INVALID_FIELD_VALUE error, or else an HTTP
error, such as "404 Not Found".
8.5. Capabilities & Uses
None (Stream control services do not appear in the IRD).
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8.6. Response
If a request is successfully accepted by the server, the server
returns an HTTP "204 No Content" response with no data. If there are
any errors, the server MUST return the appropriate ALTO error code,
and MUST NOT add or remove any resources from the update stream. It
should be noted that an HTTP "204 No Content" response does not mean
that the request is successfully processed by the server. Whenever a
server processes a request to remove resources, the server MUST send
the corresponding "remove" control update messgaes (Section 6.3) on
the update stream. If the remove operation succeeds, the "state" in
the message is true; else, it is false. If one control request
removes several resources, the server MAY send one control update
message for all those resources, or a separate event for each removed
resource, or any combination thereof.
The server MUST process the "add" field before the "remove" field.
If the request removes all active resources without adding any
additional resources, the server MUST close the update stream. Thus
an update stream cannot have zero resources.
9. Examples
9.1. Example: IRD Announcing Update Stream Services
Below is an example IRD announcing two update stream services. The
first, which is named "update-my-costs", provides updates for the
network map, the "routingcost" and "hopcount" cost maps, and a
filtered cost map resource. The second, which is named "update-my-
prop", provides updates to the endpoint properties service.
Note that in the "update-my-costs" update stream shown in the example
IRD, the ALTO server uses JSON patch for network map, and it uses
JSON merge patch to update the other resources. Also, the update
stream will only provide full replacements for "my-simple-filtered-
cost-map".
Also note that this IRD defines two filtered cost map resources.
They use the same cost types, but "my-filtered-cost-map" accepts cost
constraint tests, while "my-simple-filtered-cost-map" does not. To
avoid the issues discussed in Section 12.1, the update stream
provides updates for the second, but not the first.
"my-network-map": {
"uri": "http://alto.example.com/networkmap",
"media-type": "application/alto-networkmap+json",
},
"my-routingcost-map": {
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"uri": "http://alto.example.com/costmap/routingcost",
"media-type": "application/alto-costmap+json",
"uses": ["my-networkmap"],
"capabilities": {
"cost-type-names": ["num-routingcost"]
}
},
"my-hopcount-map": {
"uri": "http://alto.example.com/costmap/hopcount",
"media-type": "application/alto-costmap+json",
"uses": ["my-networkmap"],
"capabilities": {
"cost-type-names": ["num-hopcount"]
}
},
"my-filtered-cost-map": {
"uri": "http://alto.example.com/costmap/filtered/constraints",
"media-type": "application/alto-costmap+json",
"accepts": "application/alto-costmapfilter+json",
"uses": ["my-networkmap"],
"capabilities": {
"cost-type-names": ["num-routingcost", "num-hopcount"],
"cost-constraints": true
}
},
"my-simple-filtered-cost-map": {
"uri": "http://alto.example.com/costmap/filtered/simple",
"media-type": "application/alto-costmap+json",
"accepts": "application/alto-costmapfilter+json",
"uses": ["my-networkmap"],
"capabilities": {
"cost-type-names": ["num-routingcost", "num-hopcount"],
"cost-constraints": false
}
},
"my-props": {
"uri": "http://alto.example.com/properties",
"media-type": "application/alto-endpointprops+json",
"accepts": "application/alto-endpointpropparams+json",
"capabilities": {
"prop-types": ["priv:ietf-bandwidth"]
}
},
"update-my-costs": {
"uri": "http://alto.example.com/updates/costs",
"media-type": "text/event-stream",
"accepts": "application/alto-updatestreamparams+json",
"uses": [
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"my-network-map",
"my-routingcost-map",
"my-hopcount-map",
"my-simple-filtered-cost-map"
],
"capabilities": {
"incremental-change-media-types": {
"my-network-map": "application/json-patch+json",
"my-routingcost-map": "application/merge-patch+json",
"my-hopcount-map": "application/merge-patch+json"
}
}
},
"update-my-props": {
"uri": "http://alto.example.com/updates/properties",
"media-type": "text/event-stream",
"uses": [ "my-props" ],
"accepts": "application/alto-updatestreamparams+json",
"capabilities": {
"incremental-change-media-types": {
"my-props": "application/merge-patch+json"
}
}
}
9.2. Example: Simple Network and Cost Map Updates
Given the update streams announced in the preceding example IRD,
below we show an example of a client's request and the server's
immediate response, using the update stream resource "update-my-
costs". In the example, the client requests updates for the network
map and "routingcost" cost map, but not for the "hopcount" cost map.
The client uses the server's resource-ids as the client-ids. Because
the client does not provide a "tag" for the network map, the server
must send a full update for the network map as well as for the cost
map. The client does not set "incremental-changes" to "false", so it
defaults to "true". Thus server will send patch updates for the cost
map and the network map.
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POST /updates/costs HTTP/1.1
Host: alto.example.com
Accept: text/event-stream,application/alto-error+json
Content-Type: application/alto-updatestreamparams+json
Content-Length: ###
{ "add": {
"my-network-map": {
"resource-id": "my-network-map"
},
"my-routingcost-map": {
"resource-id": "my-routingcost-map"
}
}
}
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Connection: keep-alive
Content-Type: text/event-stream
event: application/alto-updatestreamcontrol+json
data: {"control-uri":
data: "http://alto.example.com/updates/streams/3141592653589"}
event: application/alto-networkmap+json,my-network-map
data: {
data: "meta" : {
data: "vtag": {
data: "resource-id" : "my-network-map",
data: "tag" : "da65eca2eb7a10ce8b059740b0b2e3f8eb1d4785"
data: }
data: },
data: "network-map" : {
data: "PID1" : {
data: "ipv4" : [ "192.0.2.0/24", "198.51.100.0/25" ]
data: },
data: "PID2" : {
data: "ipv4" : [ "198.51.100.128/25" ]
data: },
data: "PID3" : {
data: "ipv4" : [ "0.0.0.0/0" ],
data: "ipv6" : [ "::/0" ]
data: }
data: }
data: }
data: }
event: application/alto-costmap+json,my-routingcost-map
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data: {
data: "meta" : {
data: "dependent-vtags" : [{
data: "resource-id": "my-network-map",
data: "tag": "da65eca2eb7a10ce8b059740b0b2e3f8eb1d4785"
data: }],
data: "cost-type" : {
data: "cost-mode" : "numerical",
data: "cost-metric": "routingcost"
data: },
data: "vtag": {
data: "resource-id" : "my-routingcost-map",
data: "tag" : "3ee2cb7e8d63d9fab71b9b34cbf764436315542e"
data: }
data: },
data: "cost-map" : {
data: "PID1": { "PID1": 1, "PID2": 5, "PID3": 10 },
data: "PID2": { "PID1": 5, "PID2": 1, "PID3": 15 },
data: "PID3": { "PID1": 20, "PID2": 15 }
data: }
data: }
After sending those events immediately, the ALTO server will send
additional events as the maps change. For example, the following
represents a small change to the cost map, PID1->PID2 is changed to 9
from 5, PID3->PID1 is no longer available and PID3->PID3 is now
defined as 1:
event: application/merge-patch+json,my-routingcost-map
data: {
data: "meta" : {
data: "vtag": {
data: "tag": "c0ce023b8678a7b9ec00324673b98e54656d1f6d"
data: }
data: },
data: "cost-map": {
data: "PID1" : { "PID2" : 9 },
data: "PID3" : { "PID1" : null, "PID3" : 1 }
data: }
data: }
As another example, the following represents a change to the network
map: a ipv4 prefix "193.51.100.0/25" is added to PID1. It triggers
changes to the cost map. The ALTO server chooses to send an
incremental change for the network map, and send a full replacement
instead of an incremental change for the cost map:
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event: application/json-patch+json,my-network-map
data: {
data: {
data: "op": "replace",
data: "path": "/meta/vtag/tag",
data: "value" :"a10ce8b059740b0b2e3f8eb1d4785acd42231bfe"
data: },
data: {
data: "op": "add",
data: "path": "/network-map/PID1/ipv4/2",
data: "value": "193.51.100.0/25"
data: }
data: }
event: application/alto-costmap+json,my-routingcost-map
data: {
data: "meta" : {
data: "vtag": {
data: "tag": "c0ce023b8678a7b9ec00324673b98e54656d1f6d"
data: }
data: },
data: "cost-map" : {
data: "PID1": { "PID1": 1, "PID2": 3, "PID3": 7 },
data: "PID2": { "PID1": 12, "PID2": 1, "PID3": 9 },
data: "PID3": { "PID1": 14, "PID2": 8 }
data: }
data: }
9.3. Example: Advanced Network and Cost Map Updates
This example is similar to the previous one, except that the client
requests updates for the "hopcount" cost map as well as the
"routingcost" cost map, and provides the current version tag of the
network map, so the server is not required to send the full network
map data update message at the beginning of the stream. In this
example, the client uses the client-ids "net", "routing" and "hops"
for those resources. The ALTO server sends the stream control URI
and the full cost maps, followed by updates for the network map and
cost maps as they become available:
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POST /updates/costs HTTP/1.1
Host: alto.example.com
Accept: text/event-stream,application/alto-error+json
Content-Type: application/alto-updatestreamparams+json
Content-Length: ###
{ "add": {
"net": {
"resource-id": "my-network-map".
"tag": "a10ce8b059740b0b2e3f8eb1d4785acd42231bfe"
},
"routing": {
"resource-id": "my-routingcost-map"
},
"hops": {
"resource-id": "my-hopcount-map"
}
}
}
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Connection: keep-alive
Content-Type: text/event-stream
event: application/alto-updatestreamcontrol+json
data: {"control-uri":
data: "http://alto.example.com/updates/streams/2718281828459"}
event: application/alto-costmap+json,routing
data: { ... full routingcost cost map message ... }
event: application/alto-costmap+json,hops
data: { ... full hopcount cost map message ... }
(pause)
event: application/merge-patch+json,routing
data: {"cost-map": {"PID2" : {"PID3" : 31}}}
event: application/merge-patch+json,hops
data: {"cost-map": {"PID2" : {"PID3" : 4}}}
If the client wishes to stop receiving updates for the "hopcount"
cost map, the client can send a "remove" request on the stream
control URI:
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POST /updates/streams/2718281828459" HTTP/1.1
Host: alto.example.com
Accept: text/plain,application/alto-error+json
Content-Type: application/alto-updatestreamparams+json
Content-Length: ###
{
"remove": [ "hops" ]
}
HTTP/1.1 204 No Content
Content-Length: 0
(stream closed without sending data content)
The ALTO server sends a "remove" control update message on the
original request stream to inform the client that updates are stopped
for that resource:
event: application/alto-updatestreamcontrol+json
data: {
data: "remove": ["hops"],
data: "state": true
data: }
If the client no longer needs any updates, and wishes to shut the
update stream down gracefully, the client can send a "remove" request
with an empty array:
POST /updates/streams/2718281828459" HTTP/1.1
Host: alto.example.com
Accept: text/plain,application/alto-error+json
Content-Type: application/alto-updatestreamparams+json
Content-Length: ###
{
"remove": [ ]
}
HTTP/1.1 204 No Content
Content-Length: 0
(stream closed without sending data content)
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The ALTO server sends a final "remove" control update message on the
original request stream to inform the client that all updates are
stopped, and then closes the stream:
event: application/alto-updatestreamcontrol+json
data: {
data: "remove": ["net", "routing"],
data: "state": true
data: }
(server closes stream)
9.4. Example: Endpoint Property Updates
As another example, here is how a client can request updates for the
property "priv:ietf-bandwidth" for one set of endpoints, and
"priv:ietf-load" for another. The ALTO server immediately sends full
replacements with the property values for all endpoints. After that,
the server sends data update messages for the individual endpoints as
their property values change.
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POST /updates/properties HTTP/1.1
Host: alto.example.com
Accept: text/event-stream
Content-Type: application/alto-updatestreamparams+json
Content-Length: ###
{ "add": {
"props-1": {
"resource-id": "my-props",
"input": {
"properties" : [ "priv:ietf-bandwidth" ],
"endpoints" : [
"ipv4:198.51.100.1",
"ipv4:198.51.100.2",
"ipv4:198.51.100.3"
]
}
},
"props-2": {
"resource-id": "my-props",
"input": {
"properties" : [ "priv:ietf-load" ],
"endpoints" : [
"ipv6:2001:db8:100::1",
"ipv6:2001:db8:100::2",
"ipv6:2001:db8:100::3",
]
}
},
}
}
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HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Connection: keep-alive
Content-Type: text/event-stream
event: application/alto-updatestreamcontrol+json
data: {"control-uri":
data: "http://alto.example.com/updates/streams/1414213562373"}
event: application/alto-endpointprops+json,props-1
data: { "endpoint-properties": {
data: "ipv4:198.51.100.1" : { "priv:ietf-bandwidth": "13" },
data: "ipv4:198.51.100.2" : { "priv:ietf-bandwidth": "42" },
data: "ipv4:198.51.100.3" : { "priv:ietf-bandwidth": "27" }
data: } }
event: application/alto-endpointprops+json,props-2
data: { "endpoint-properties": {
data: "ipv6:2001:db8:100::1" : { "priv:ietf-load": "8" },
data: "ipv6:2001:db8:100::2" : { "priv:ietf-load": "2" },
data: "ipv6:2001:db8:100::3" : { "priv:ietf-load": "9" }
data: } }
(pause)
event: application/merge-patch+json,props-1
data: { "endpoint-properties":
data: {"ipv4:198.51.100.1" : {"priv:ietf-bandwidth": "3"}}
data: }
(pause)
event: application/merge-patch+json,props-2
data: { "endpoint-properties":
data: {"ipv6:2001:db8:100::3" : {"priv:ietf-load": "7"}}
data: }
If the client needs the "bandwidth" property for additional
endpoints, the client can send an "add" request on the stream control
URI:
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POST /updates/streams/1414213562373" HTTP/1.1
Host: alto.example.com
Accept: text/plain,application/alto-error+json
Content-Type: application/alto-updatestreamparams+json
Content-Length: ###
{ "add": {
"props-3": {
"resource-id": "my-props",
"input": {
"properties" : [ "priv:ietf-bandwidth" ],
"endpoints" : [
"ipv4:198.51.100.4",
"ipv4:198.51.100.5",
]
}
},
"props-4": {
"resource-id": "my-props",
"input": {
"properties" : [ "priv:ietf-load" ],
"endpoints" : [
"ipv6:2001:db8:100::4",
"ipv6:2001:db8:100::5",
]
}
},
}
}
HTTP/1.1 204 No Content
Content-Length: 0
(stream closed without sending data content)
The ALTO server sends full replacements for the two new resources,
followed by incremental changes for all four requests as they arrive:
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event: application/alto-endpointprops+json,props-3
data: { "endpoint-properties": {
data: "ipv4:198.51.100.4" : { "priv:ietf-bandwidth": "25" },
data: "ipv4:198.51.100.5" : { "priv:ietf-bandwidth": "31" },
data: } }
event: application/alto-endpointprops+json,props-4
data: { "endpoint-properties": {
data: "ipv6:2001:db8:100::4" : { "priv:ietf-load": "6" },
data: "ipv6:2001:db8:100::5" : { "priv:ietf-load": "4" },
data: } }
(pause)
event: application/merge-patch+json,props-3
data: { "endpoint-properties":
data: {"ipv4:198.51.100.5" : {"priv:ietf-bandwidth": "15"}}
data: }
(pause)
event: application/merge-patch+json,props-2
data: { "endpoint-properties":
data: {"ipv6:2001:db8:100::2" : {"priv:ietf-load": "9"}}
data: }
(pause)
event: application/merge-patch+json,props-4
data: { "endpoint-properties":
data: {"ipv6:2001:db8:100::4" : {"priv:ietf-load": "3"}}
data: }
10. Client Actions When Receiving Update Messages
In general, when a client receives a full replacement for a resource,
the client should replace the current version with the new version.
When a client receives an incremental change for a resource, the
client should apply those patches to the current version of the
resource.
However, because resources can depend on other resources (e.g., cost
maps depend on network maps), an ALTO client MUST NOT use a dependent
resource if the resource on which it depends has changed. There are
at least two ways a client can do that. We will illustrate these
techniques by referring to network and cost map messages, although
these techniques apply to any dependent resources.
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Note that when a network map changes, the ALTO server MUST send the
network map update message before sending the updates for the
dependent cost maps (see Section 7.6.2).
One approach is for the ALTO client to save the network map update
message in a buffer, and continue to use the previous network map,
and the associated cost maps, until the client receives the update
messages for all dependent cost maps. The client then applies all
network and cost map updates atomically.
Alternatively, the client MAY update the network map immediately. In
this case, the client MUST mark each dependent cost map as
temporarily invalid, and MUST NOT use that map until the client
receives a cost map update message with the new network map version
tag. Note that the client MUST NOT delete the cost maps, because the
server may send incremental changes.
The ALTO server SHOULD send updates for dependent resources in a
timely fashion. However, if the client does not receive the expected
updates, the client MUST close the update stream connection, discard
the dependent resources, and reestablish the update stream. The
client MAY retain the version tag of the last version of any tagged
resources, and give those version tags when requesting the new update
stream. In this case, if a version is still current, the ALTO server
will not re-send that resource.
Although not as efficient as possible, this recovery method is simple
and reliable.
11. Design Decisions and Discussions
11.1. HTTP/2 Server-Push
HTTP/2 ([RFC7540]) provides a Server Push facility. Although the
name implies that it might be useful for sending asynchronous updates
from the server to the client, in reality Server Push is not well
suited for that task. To see why it is not, here is a quick summary
of HTTP/2.
HTTP/2 allows a client and server to multiplex many HTTP requests and
responses over a single TCP connection. The requests and responses
can be interleaved on a block by block basis, avoiding the head-of-
line blocking problem encountered with the Keep-Alive mechanism in
HTTP/1.1. Server Push allows the server to send a resource (an
image, a CSS file, a javascript file, etc.) to the client before the
client explicitly requests it. A server can only push cacheable GET-
mode resources. By pushing a resource, the server implicitly tells
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the client, "Add this resource to your cache, because a resource you
have requested needs it."
One approach for using Server Push for ALTO updates is for the server
to send each data update message as a separate Server Push item, and
let the client apply those updates as they arrive. Unfortunately
there are several problems with that approach.
First, HTTP/2 does not guarantee that pushed resources are delivered
to the client in the order they were sent by the client, so each data
update message would need a sequence number, and the client would
have to re-sequence them.
Second, an HTTP/2-aware client library will not necessarily inform a
client application when the server pushes a resource. Instead, the
library might cache the pushed resource, and only deliver it to the
client when the client explicitly requests that URI.
But the third problem is the most significant: Server Push is
optional, and can be disabled by any proxy between the client and the
server. This is not a problem for the intended use of Server Push:
eventually the client will request those resources, so disabling
Server Push just adds a delay. But this means that Server Push is
not suitable for resources which the client does not know to request.
Thus we do not believe HTTP/2 Server Push is suitable for delivering
asynchronous updates. Hence we have chosen to base ALTO updates on
HTTP/1.1 and SSE.
11.2. Not Allowing Stream Restart
If an update stream is closed accidentally, when the client
reconnects, the server must resend the full maps. This is clearly
inefficient. To avoid that inefficiency, the SSE specification
allows a server to assign an id to each event. When a client
reconnects, the client can present the id of the last successfully
received event, and the server restarts with the next event.
However, that mechanism adds additional complexity. The server must
save SSE messages in a buffer, in case clients reconnect. But that
mechanism will never be perfect: if the client waits too long to
reconnect, or if the client sends an invalid id, then the server will
have to resend the complete maps anyway.
Furthermore, this is unlikely to be a problem in practice. Clients
who want continuous updates for large resources, such as full Network
and cost maps, are likely to be things like P2P trackers. These
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clients will be well connected to the network; they will rarely drop
connections.
Mobile devices certainly can and do drop connections, and will have
to reconnect. But mobile devices will not need continuous updates
for multi-megabyte cost maps. If mobile devices need continuous
updates at all, they will need them for small queries, such as the
costs from a small set of media servers from which the device can
stream the currently playing movie. If the mobile device drops the
connection and reestablishes the update stream, the ALTO server will
have to retransmit only a small amount of redundant data.
In short, using event ids to avoid resending the full map adds a
considerable amount of complexity to avoid a situation which we
expect is very rare. We believe that complexity is not worth the
benefit.
The Update Stream service does allow the client to specify the tag of
the last received version of any tagged resource, and if that is
still current, the server need not retransmit the full resource.
Hence clients can use this to avoid retransmitting full network maps.
cost maps are not tagged, so this will not work for them. Of course,
the ALTO protocol could be extended by adding version tags to cost
maps, which would solve the retransmission-on-reconnect problem.
However, adding tags to cost maps might add a new set of
complications.
11.3. Data Update Choices
11.3.1. Full Replacement or Incremental Change
At this point we do not have sufficient experience with ALTO
deployments to know how frequently the resources will change, or how
extensive those changes will be. For stable resources with minor
changes, the server may choose to send incremental changes; for
resources that frequently change, the server may choose to send a
full replacement after a while. Whether to send full replacement or
incremental change depends on the server.
11.3.2. JSON Merge Patch or JSON Patch
We allow both JSON patch and JSON merge patch for incremental
changes. JSON merge patch is clearly superior to JSON patch for
describing incremental changes to Cost Maps, Endpoint Costs, and
Endpoint Properties. For these data structures, JSON merge patch is
more space-efficient, as well as simpler to apply; we see no
advantage to allowing a server to use JSON patch for those resources.
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The case is not as clear for incremental changes to network maps.
First consider small changes such as moving a prefix from one PID to
another. JSON patch could encode that as a simple insertion and
deletion, while merge patch would have to replace the entire array of
prefixes for both PIDs. On the other hand, to process a JSON patch
update, the client would have to retain the indexes of the prefixes
for each PID. Logically, the prefixes in a PID are an unordered set,
not an array; aside from handling updates, a client has no need to
retain the array indexes of the prefixes. Hence to take advantage of
JSON patch for network maps, clients would have to retain additional,
otherwise unnecessary, data.
Second, consider more involved changes such as removing half of the
prefixes from a PID. JSON merge patch would send a new array for
that PID, while JSON patch would have to send a list of remove
operations and delete the prefix one by one.
Therefore, each server may decide on its own whether to use JSON
merge patch or JSON patch according to the changes in network maps.
Other JSON-based incremental change formats may be introduced in the
future.
11.4. Requirements on Future ALTO Services to Use this Design
Although this design is quite flexible, it has underlying
requirements. In particular, the key requirements are that (1) each
update message is for a single resource; (2) incremental changes can
be applied only to a resource that is a single JSON object, as both
merge patch and JSON patch can apply only to a single JSON object.
Hence, if a future ALTO resource can contain multiple objects, then
either each individual object also has a resource-id or an extention
to this design is made.
If an update stream provides updates to a filtered cost map that
allows constraint tests, the requirements for such services are
stated in Section 12.1.
12. Miscellaneous Considerations
12.1. Considerations for Updates to Filtered Cost Maps
If an update stream provides updates to a Filtered cost map which
allows constraint tests, then a client MAY request updates to a
Filtered cost map request with a constraint test. In this case, when
a cost changes, the server MUST send an update if the new value
satisfies the test. If the new value does not, whether the server
sends an update depends on whether the previous value satisfied the
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test. If it did not, the server SHOULD NOT send an update to the
client. But if the previous value did, then the server MUST send an
update with a "null" value, to inform the client that this cost no
longer satisfies the criteria.
An ALTO server can avoid such issues by offering update streams only
for filtered cost maps which do not allow constraint tests.
12.2. Considerations for Incremental Updates to Ordinal Mode Costs
For an ordinal mode cost map, a change to a single cost point may
require updating many other costs. As an extreme example, suppose
the lowest cost changes to the highest cost. For a numerical mode
cost map, only that one cost changes. But for an ordinal mode cost
map, every cost might change. While this document allows a server to
offer incremental updates for ordinal mode cost maps, server
implementors should be aware that incremental updates for ordinal
costs are more complicated than for numerical costs, and clients
should be aware that small changes may result in large updates.
An ALTO server can avoid this complication by only offering full
replacements for ordinal cost maps.
12.3. Considerations Related to SSE Line Lengths
SSE was designed for events that consist of relatively small amounts
of line-oriented text data, and SSE clients frequently read input one
line-at-a-time. However, an update stream sends full cost maps as
single events, and a cost map may involve megabytes, if not tens of
megabytes, of text. This has implications for both the ALTO server
and Client.
First, SSE clients might not be able to handle a multi-megabyte data
"line". Hence it is RECOMMENDED that an ALTO server limit data lines
to at most 2,000 characters.
Second, some SSE client packages read all the data for an event into
memory, and then present it to the client as a single character
array. However, a client computer may not have enough memory to hold
the entire JSON text for a large cost map. Hence an ALTO client
SHOULD consider using an SSE library which presents the event data in
manageable chunks, so the client can parse the cost map incrementally
and store the underlying data in a more compact format.
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13. Security Considerations
13.1. Denial-of-Service Attacks
Allowing persistent update stream connections enables a new class of
Denial-of-Service attacks. A client might create an unreasonable
number of update stream connections, or add an unreasonable number of
client-ids to one update stream. To avoid those attacks, an ALTO
server MAY choose to limit the number of active streams, and reject
new requests when that threshold is reached. A server MAY also
choose to limit the number of active client-ids on any given stream,
or limit the total number of client-ids used over the lifetime of a
stream, and reject any stream control request which would exceed
those limits. In these cases, the server SHOULD return the HTTP
status "503 Service Unavailable".
While this technique prevents update stream DoS attacks from
disrupting an ALTO server's other services, it does make it easier
for a DoS attack to disrupt the update stream service. Therefore a
server may prefer to restrict update stream services to authorized
clients, as discussed in Section 15 of [RFC7285].
Alternatively an ALTO server MAY return the HTTP status "307
Temporary Redirect" to redirect the client to another ALTO server
which can better handle a large number of update streams.
13.2. Spoofed Control Requests
An outside party which can read the update stream response, or which
can observe stream control requests, can obtain the control URI and
use that to send a fraudulent "remove" requests, thus disabling
updates for the valid client. This can be avoided by encrypting the
update stream and stream control requests (see Section 15 of
[RFC7285]). Also, the ALTO server echoes the "remove" requests on
the update stream, so the valid client can detect unauthorized
requests.
13.3. Privacy
This extension does not introduce any privacy issues not already
present in the ALTO protocol.
14. IANA Considerations
This document defines two new media-types, "application/alto-
updatestreamparams+json", as described in Section 7.3, and
"application/alto-updatestreamcontrol+json", as described in
Section 6.3. All other media-types used in this document have
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already been registered, either for ALTO, JSON merge patch, or JSON
patch.
Type name: application
Subtype name: alto-updatestreamparams+json
Required parameters: n/a
Optional parameters: n/a
Encoding considerations: Encoding considerations are identical to
those specified for the "application/json" media type. See
[RFC7159].
Security considerations: Security considerations relating to the
generation and consumption of ALTO Protocol messages are discussed
in Section 13 of this document and Section 15 of [RFC7285].
Interoperability considerations: This document specifies format of
conforming messages and the interpretation thereof.
Published specification: Section 7.3 of this document.
Applications that use this media type: ALTO servers and ALTO clients
either stand alone or are embedded within other applications.
Additional information:
Magic number(s): n/a
File extension(s): This document uses the mime type to refer to
protocol messages and thus does not require a file extension.
Macintosh file type code(s): n/a
Person & email address to contact for further information: See
Authors' Addresses section.
Intended usage: COMMON
Restrictions on usage: n/a
Author: See Authors' Addresses section.
Change controller: Internet Engineering Task Force
(mailto:iesg@ietf.org).
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Type name: application
Subtype name: alto-updatestreamcontrol+json
Required parameters: n/a
Optional parameters: n/a
Encoding considerations: Encoding considerations are identical to
those specified for the "application/json" media type. See
[RFC7159].
Security considerations: Security considerations relating to the
generation and consumption of ALTO Protocol messages are discussed
in Section 13 of this document and Section 15 of [RFC7285].
Interoperability considerations: This document specifies format of
conforming messages and the interpretation thereof.
Published specification: Section 6.3 of this document.
Applications that use this media type: ALTO servers and ALTO clients
either stand alone or are embedded within other applications.
Additional information:
Magic number(s): n/a
File extension(s): This document uses the mime type to refer to
protocol messages and thus does not require a file extension.
Macintosh file type code(s): n/a
Person & email address to contact for further information: See
Authors' Addresses section.
Intended usage: COMMON
Restrictions on usage: n/a
Author: See Authors' Addresses section.
Change controller: Internet Engineering Task Force
(mailto:iesg@ietf.org).
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15. References
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", RFC 2119, BCP 14, March 1997.
[RFC5789] Dusseault, L. and J. Snell, "PATCH Method for HTTP",
RFC 5789, March 2010.
[RFC6902] Bryan, P. and M. Nottingham, "JavaScript Object Notation
(JSON) Patch", RFC 6902, April 2013.
[RFC7159] Bray, T., "The JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) Data
Interchange Format", RFC 7159, March 2014.
[RFC7230] Fielding, R. and J. Reschke, "Hypertext Transfer Protocol
(HTTP/1.1): Message Syntax and Routing", RFC 7230, June
2014.
[RFC7231] Fielding, R. and J. Reschke, "Hypertext Transfer Protocol
(HTTP/1.1): Semantics and Content", RFC 7231, June 2014.
[RFC7285] Almi, R., Penno, R., Yang, Y., Kiesel, S., Previdi, S.,
Roome, W., Shalunov, S., and R. Woundy, "Application-Layer
Traffic Optimization (ALTO) Protocol", RFC 7285, September
2014.
[RFC7396] Hoffman, P. and J. Snell, "JSON Merge Patch", RFC 7396,
October 2014.
[RFC7540] Belshe, M., Peon, R., and M. Thomson, "Hypertext Transfer
Protocol Version 2 (HTTP/2)", RFC 7540, May 2015.
[SSE] Hickson, I., "Server-Sent Events (W3C)", W3C
Recommendation 03 February 2015, February 2015.
Appendix A. Acknowledgments
Thank you to Xiao Shi (Yale University) for his contributions to an
earlier version of this document.
Authors' Addresses
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Wendy Roome
Nokia Bell Labs (Retired)
124 Burlington Rd
Murray Hill, NJ 07974
USA
Phone: +1-908-464-6975
Email: wendy@wdroome.com
Y. Richard Yang
Tongji/Yale University
51 Prospect St
New Haven CT
USA
Email: yang.r.yang@gmail.com
Shiwei Dawn Chen
Tongji University
4800 Caoan Road
Shanghai 201804
China
Email: dawn_chen_f@hotmail.com
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